HACIENDA LUISITA — Protesting laborers and farm workers here, joined by their respective families and reinforced by militant activists, have practically taken control over nearly all movements in this sprawling sugar estate owned by the family of former President Corazon Aquino.
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Luisita resumes milling operations as tension eases
HACIENDA LUISITA — Tension has somewhat eased in this 6,000-hectare sugar plantation, as the ranks of the protesters who locked up the refinery during the weekend have thinned out, allowing the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) to resume its milling operations noontime Monday.
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Truck attacks force Luisita mill closure anew
HACIENDA LUISITA — The “violent and destructive” actions being carried out by alleged “troublemakers” among the ranks of protesters here has forced Luzon’s biggest sugar mill to shutdown anew its operations Tuesday morning, after these were briefly resumed around noontime last Monday.
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7-month long Rabbit strike ends
TARLAC CITY — The almost seven-month long strike in one of the country’s oldest transport company finally came to an end, as the Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines (PRBL) commenced plying major routes from Metro Manila to Central and Northern Luzon again.
TARLAC CITY — The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) has recently decided to extend the lease contract of air courier giant, the Federal Express (FedEx), up to August 2010.
Int’l media watchdog: RP hostile for journalists
TARLAC CITY — Although the country has a “free and lively press,” the Philippines has been counted by the Paris-based international media watchdog as one of the places most hostile to journalists.
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The Tarlac Headlines News Central displays all the news of our latest issues.
Nov. 1 - 21, 2004
Luisita resumes milling operations as tension eases
HACIENDA LUISITA — Tension has somewhat eased in this 6,000-hectare sugar plantation, as the ranks of the protesters who locked up the refinery during the weekend have thinned out, allowing the Central Azucarera de Tarlac (CAT) to resume its milling operations noontime Monday.
Soldiers from the Army’s 69th Infantry Battalion were also already withdrawn from this estate by the Armed Forces’ Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom), together with the additional reinforcements dispatched by the regional police office in Camp Olivas in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga.
Lt. Col. Preme Monta, Nolcom spokesman, said they have assessed that the hostilities caused by the mass actions staged by some members of the CAT Labor Union (CATLU) and the United Luisita Workers’ Union (ULWU), which resulted to at least two rounds of skirmishes between the rallyists and anti-riot policemen, has “already subsided.”
CATLU represents the sugar refinery’s 768 workforce, while ULWU is the recognized union of this estate’s more than 5,000 farmworker-beneficiaries being regarded as “co-stock holders” by the family of former President Corazon Aquino in the Hacienda Luisita, Inc. (HLI) under the stock distribution scheme of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Monta added that Nolcom commanding officer, Lt. Gen. Romeo Dominguez, even ordered for the pull out from this sprawling estate of the AFP’s Civil Disturbance Unit.
Despite this, however, some ULWU members, backed by militants from the radical groups, Anakpawis and Bayan Muna party-lists, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan-Tarlac), Nagkakaisang Manggagawa ng Tarlac (NMT), Alyansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Tarlac (AMT), League of Filipino Students (LFS) and Anakbayan, continued to hold a picket near the CAT refinery’s Gate 1 here.
Monta said that about 50 policemen from the province remained stationed here to provide backup to the management’s security force, while 69th IB soldiers had to maintain “alert status” in one of their detachments in this plantation.
Rene Galang, who was among the 327 farmworkers laid off last October by the HLI and subsequently ousted as ULWU president, said that they will continue to hold their picketline.
The HLI has refused to recognize Galang’s leadership in the ULWU, as he was already replaced last month by Ronaldo Alcantara.
This, even as the management here announced that their operations are “back to normal.”
But there were reports of alleged harassments done by militant activists, as some of the trucks transporting newly-cut sugarcane that were stranded along the road here leading to the refinery during the height of the protests had their tires punctured with pointed objects.
Activists said to be belonging to the party-list group, Anakpawis, also reportedly setup a “checkpoint” along the main road here in Barangay Balete, where some factory workers reporting to their posts were allegedly being turned away.
Because of this, HLI’s private security force had to deploy some of its personnel to escort workers going to and from the sugar refinery.
Management has claimed that majority of the CATLU members wanted to report for work, even as they were demanding from their president, Ricardo Ramos, clarification on their group’s stand on the mass actions.
CATLU has been on a deadlock in its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) talks with the CAT, as the union was demanding for a P100 wage hike and P30,000 signing bonus for each of its members. Management said that it can only provide a P12 salary increase and a P12,000 bonus.
Although Ramos reportedly denied having any knowledge about the protest actions, he was seen to be among the ULWU protesters.
Milling operations here were shut down around noontime Saturday when around 20 CATLU members manning the refinery’s boiler division abandoned their posts. Without the boilers’ steam, the mill could not produce sugar.
Management said that charges are being prepared to be filed against the CATLU members who joined the mass actions.
An hour before the rallyists and militants blocked Gate 1 and Gate 2 of the refinery, some 20 hectares of sugarcane field in Barangay Murcia in Concepcion town, which is within this plantation, was set on fire by armed men believed to be guerillas of the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA).
A clash between the protesters and anti-riot lawmen took place at around 6 p.m. Saturday, while another round of violent confrontation ensued before the break of dawn the following day.
Rally leaders blamed the police for the skirmishes, but authorities said that it was the rallyists who provoked the conflict when lawmen were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktail bombs, as well as teargas canisters.
The protesters were pacified with water cannons, as it was learned Monday morning that among those hurt during the confrontations was Superintendent Rudy Lacadin, police chief of Tarlac City.
Meanwhile, Monta belied reports in the Philippine Daily Inquirer saying that 83 of the rallyists were hurt and had to be hospitalized. He said that when they ran a check on all of the hospitals here, no one from this sugar plantation was admitted for treatment for any injury sustained during the clashes.
“It’s obviously plain propaganda laced with lies using the media,” said the Nolcom spokesman.
The violent mass action came as the sugar refinery here, the biggest in Luzon, went full swing in its operations for this year’s milling season for the harvests of sugarcane planters in Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, and the rest of Central and Northern Luzon.
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